City Council Redistricting Legislation on the Agenda for City Council Meeting
September 16, 2022
The City Council Meeting on Monday, September 19, 2022, will have the Redistricting Legislation, O-22-34, on the agenda for final action. Public comment will be heard on the bill and action can be taken on Monday or the bill can be deferred to a future City Council Meeting.
At the September 7, 2022, City Council Meeting, City Councilors Pat Davis and Tammy Fiebelkorn shared their proposed amendments to O-22-34 to change the proposed map of City Council Districts. Councilor Davis’ amendment proposed to replace Exhibit A with Citizen Map 4. Councilor Fiebelkorn’s amendment proposed to replace Exhibit A with Citizen Map 5. The amendments and proposed maps are on the project webpage at www.cabq.gov/2022redistricting.
The agenda for Monday’s City Council can be found here: https://cabq.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx and the public can sign up for public comment at the City Council Meeting here: https://www.cabq.gov/sep-19-2022-comment. Written public comment can also be submitted through the project webpage at www.cabq.gov/2022redistricting or the Contact Your Councilor webform at: https://www.cabq.gov/council/find-your-councilor/contact-all-councilors.
Following its series of meetings, the 2022 City Council Redistricting Committee provided its report and recommendations to the City Council on July 1, 2022. The Committee Report, OC-22-13 was formally received by the City Council at the September 7, 2022, City Council Meeting.
O-22-34 is the ordinance to establish new Council District boundaries, sponsored by City Councilors Klarissa Peña and Brook Bassan. The ordinance references Exhibit A, which contains Concept Map A from the Committee’s process. Concept Map A was the highest rated map from the Committee, but the Council will be able to amend that map, or they can substitute that exhibit for another of the eight recommended maps or an entirely new map.
The webpage www.cabq.gov/2022redistricting, contains all information about the Redistricting process, including all Redistricting Committee’s meeting information, including videos of the meetings, presentation materials, maps, and the ability for community members to submit written public comments that can include map suggestions and information about their communities of interest.
Every 10 years, the City Charter requires that the Council appoint a committee composed of an equal number of representatives from each Council District to review and make recommendations regarding redistricting the Council Districts based on information from the Federal Census. The Committee is tasked with using the population data from the official 2020 U.S. Census along with any other pertinent information to make a report recommending changes in the Council District boundaries that the Committee decides are necessary based on constitutional principles governing voting rights, population, compactness, and other related factors.
The Committee is made up of 18 members - one voting member and one alternate member from each Council District. The Council is required, in appointing a committee that "as nearly as is practicable" be a fair and balanced representation of all geographical areas of the City in the redistricting process and provide a total membership that reflects the racial, ethnic and gender makeup of the City's population.
The 2022 Redistricting committee was established via R-21-226 and the members appointed via OC-22-1. Per R-21-226, the committee began meeting in March 2022, with recommendations submitted to City Council on July 1, 2022. The recommendations are contained in their report OC-22-13 and the legislation to establish new district boundaries is O-22-34.